


the habits of a flower

by apiphyte



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 16:34:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4228983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apiphyte/pseuds/apiphyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ليست كلمة يمر بيننا، وليس لدينا اي شيء يقوله، ولكن لأننا لا يجب أن أقول أي شيء<br/>"Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don’t have to say anything"<br/>- Khaled Hosseini</p><p>These are the habits of a flower called 'Rose'</p>
            </blockquote>





	the habits of a flower

Rose likes her coffee black and her cigarettes shitty  
In the mornings you can find her by the open window, bare feet tucked under her body, breathing in coffee steam and following the falling snow with the lavender planted in her sleep bruised eye sockets  
After a breakfast of shitty coffee and cereal without milk you can find her sitting on the salt eroded curb in the pavement of an empty parking lot, breathing lavender cigarette smoke from her weird hand rolled cigarettes that she gets from that one weird store that sells creepy wizard statues that she loves so much into the salty air and looking out over the dark waters of the ocean by your home  
Sometimes she brings a book, usually a ridiculously large tome that she found at one of her occult book stores and writes her thoughts in the margins in lavender ink  
Sometimes she brings her music, weird wordless music or music in other languages, and drowns out the sound of the waves eroding the rocks  
Sometimes she just sits in silence, listening to the salt water on the rocks  
Sometimes she gets breakfast at the coffee shop down the street where she drinks black coffee and smiles warmly at the green eyed Hijabi girl that brews the coffee behind the counter  
She has begun to go every morning now  
She smiles at the coffee girl and leaves her coffee cups stained with black lipstick marks  
Rose speaks about her like she's an herb garden to be explored  
She says her skin is like your coffee that you always put too much milk in and her hair is like espresso  
She says her hijab is soft and green and her skin is planted with gold  
She says she smells like rosemary and speaks evenly  
She says she loves her  
You ask her if she wants some waffles

At night Rose can be found with the subculture of the city  
She leaves smelling of lavender and comes home at 3 am smelling of alcohol and cigarettes  
When she stumbles into your shared room she gives you a drunken smile that climbs it's way to her black lined eyes.  
She falls face first onto the mattress and lets herself sink into the softness of the purple comforter  
She turns her face to look at you, cheek pressed into the comforter, makeup smudged  
She slurs your name through her black smudged lips  
"Dav"  
"Davie"  
"Dave"  
You shake your head and raise your pale eyebrows, smiling tightly  
It doesn't make its way to your eyes like hers does  
"Rose"  
She takes a deep breath and her body shakes with laughter as she presses her face back into the comforter  
You press a hand to your head and rub your eyes  
As soon as you heard her stumble into the apartment you knew you wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight  
Not that you get sleep any other night but you do get to work on your music or go to the shitty diner down the street or just sit outside and smoke but tonight you have to deal with your drunk twin sister  
It's the third time this week  
You sigh, "want some coffee?"  
"Yaaaaas" she slurs, voice muffled by the comforter  
"I'll make that instant coffee shit that John got from work, go get changed or something, you smell like those weird cigarettes you smoke, what is even in those" you say  
"The whole apartment smells like cigarettes, and majyyks are whats in them Dave, majyyks" she says, face still pressed into the softness of the comforter  
"Yeah and it's fuckin gross, also are you doing drugs now too" you say  
"You smoke too, and no for your information my brother I am not doing drugs"  
"Only to look cool, Lalonde, to look cool, and good, we don't need drugs on top of...this" you say, gesturing to her half passed out on the mattress  
"Is that not the sole reason a person would inhale smoke into their lungs? And I wouldn't take drugs, don't need to"  
"Shit no, you don't smoke to look cool"  
"You are correct, I smoke because I want to speed up this whole death thing. I prefer to be as in control of my own predestine cosmic fate as humanly possible"  
"You can get existential on me when your not fucking drunk, now go get changed or I'm putting milk in your coffee"  
"Noooeees"  
"Then go get your ass changed"  
She groans into the comforter  
"Pretty sure Jade left some soy milk here that has since gained sentience"  
"Okay okay goooood I'm getting up"

You sit together by the open window  
The heat hits your skin in waves and the steam of your coffee is not as comfortable as it is in the snow  
Rose has both hands around her favorite mug, some piece of shit you made her, for the ironies of course  
Her head is clearer and she smiles tiredly as she sips at her coffee  
She has cleaned off her smudged makeup and pulled her gold hair into a baby bun  
She looks a lot less like your sister when she's like this, bare, uncovered, surprisingly human  
Most of the time you're sure that she's not, she's a goddess of salt and fortune that inhabits your life  
She's too herself to be human  
She looks at you over the rim of her coffee mug and her eyes look brighter than before  
"David"  
"Rose"  
That's all that needs to be said, those words  
You just sit there like that in comfortable silence, two people in perfect asymmetry  
You're the calm in a storm  
She is the storm  
Either way you're a disaster  
And you wouldn't want it any other way  
She holds out her hand to you and you take it in yours  
Her skin is soft and cold and dark with yours like latte and foam  
You know each other like the lines on your palm  
You are part of her habitual life and she is part of yours  
You're twins  
And you exist in asymmetry  
But together you form something resembling stability  
Together you are whole  
"Together" You say  
It's not a question anymore  
It stopped being a question a long time ago  
She looks at you with her eyes like lavender and presses her cold fingers into the skin of your hand  
A smile grows on her lips  
"Together"

**Author's Note:**

> It's like five in he morning and I'm waiting for my flight to Portland but I have some caffeine and breakfast so I'm doin pretty noice  
> I just really love these siblings


End file.
